Fears for survival of region’s ‘flatlining’ villages

Ryedale and Richmondshire in the stunning Yorkshire Dales are among four of the region’s districts where experts say little or no population growth will happen over the next 25 years, raising fresh fears about the sustainability of many tiny villages and the services they rely on.

Scarborough and North East Lincolnshire have also been picked out by experts at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) as areas where the numbers of residents will hardly increase at all over the next quarter of a century.

In the third part of the Yorkshire Post investigation of the future of the region’s population, we meet some of the people living in these communities to find out why population levels are staying so flat – in stark contrast to the rest of the UK.

It can be revealed today that the ONS’s latest projections, based on 2010 data, put Scarborough, North East Lincolnshire, Ryedale and Richmondshire in the bottom 21 districts nationwide for population growth in a table of more than 350 local authority areas.

The link between population and economic growth is well established, and the forecasts have left some local politicians concerned about the future of their local areas.

“The implications for our Dales communities are stark,” said John Blackie, leader of the district council in Richmondshire, where the population is now forecast to grow by just 3.6 per cent in 25 years.

“The services that we depend on will gradually fold; they will collapse before our eyes. Shops and pubs and schools will go.

“Then you find that everything is a distant drive away and it becomes too much for people – and they move away too to be closer to the schools.

“They will be replaced with second-home owners and these communities will simply be dead in the week.”

Coun Blackie said the problems facing the Dales must be addressed as a matter of urgency if villages are going to be 
sustainable over the coming decades.

“The cost of housing is key,” he said. “In places like Richmondshire which has an international reputation for its scenery and quality of life, the price of housing is massively inflated.

“It is one of the most expensive places in the Dales to live and yet wages are extremely low – so people growing up here simply cannot afford to stay.

“These are holiday-cottage prices and agricultural wages, and young families starting out cannot afford it.

“It is essential that we build low-cost housing in these areas if the communities are to survive.”

The issues facing Scarborough and North East Lincolnshire are quite different. Housing is relatively cheap, but struggling local economies are seeing people moving away in search of work.

The issue is likely to be significantly accentuated by Britain’s rapidly ageing population.

On Saturday the Yorkshire Post revealed fears that the UK is “sleep-walking to disaster” owing to the country’s failure to prepare for the massive increase in the number of elderly people who will require care and support over the next 20 years.

Two of the areas picked out as having soaring numbers of elderly people were Scarborough and Richmondshire. In the Scarborough borough more than 40 per cent of residents will be 65 or over by 2028 – more than twice the national average.

The figures suggest that in areas such as these, as young people move away there are dwindling numbers of working age people left behind to support the elderly and infirm.